Carlsbad Police Track Gladys Conrad's Murderer Back to Mexico

Thirteen months after Fernandez was arrested, U.S. Marshals took him into custody and flew him to San Diego, where he arrived on March 2, 2010. “We met them at Lindbergh Field. The marshals and the San Diego Harbor Police brought the defendant over to where we were waiting at harbor police headquarters, and that’s where I took custody of him,” said Harvey.

“And I had a grin on my face like you wouldn’t believe,” he added.

Fernandez was driven to Carlsbad police headquarters. That night, Harvey wanted to do two things: conduct “an interview and collect evidence.” Carlsbad police took photographs and a DNA sample to compare with the evidence from the Carlsbad and Los Angeles crime scenes. “So everybody knows we are dealing with the same person.

“I got an interpreter from the DA’s office,” said Harvey. “This investigator is well traveled in Mexico and speaks very fluent Spanish. I had prepared about 13 pages of information to question him about, but he invoked his Miranda rights — his right to remain silent — at the time he was read his rights. Immediately. He didn’t seem scared. He knew what he was facing. He had 13 months to prepare before coming up. We had to give the Mexican authorities a complete copy of the case. He was aware of the evidence we had against him. He had 13 months to make a decision, whether or not he should talk to us, probably with the help of his counsel down there.”

Fernandez was held without bail. A photo taken in Mexico shows Fernandez is five feet five inches tall, and the San Diego Sheriff, upon admitting Fernandez to jail, estimated his weight as 180 pounds.

In June 2010, a preliminary hearing was held in the Vista courthouse. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office granted jurisdiction to San Diego County for the Los Angeles attempted rape case. The woman who survived the 2004 rape attempt and beating, now 70 years old, traveled to Vista to testify and identify her attacker. Superior Court Judge Harry Elias ordered Fernandez to stand trial on five felonies, including murder and attempted rape with great bodily injury.

Four months later, Fernandez’s defense attorney asked for a plea deal. “The offer came from his side,” said Harvey. “He and his attorney made the offer to plead guilty.” Fernandez feared getting a sentence of life without parole if the case went to trial, according to Harvey.

On October 7, 2010, Fernandez, now 34, pleaded guilty to raping and killing Gladys Conrad in 2001 and to the attempted rape of Ramira Joves in 2004 and to causing her great bodily injury.

Fernandez was sentenced on January 6 to 34 years to life in prison. “We figured it out. He will be eligible for parole when he is something like 71 years old,” said Harvey.

“We have a good idea as to what happened,” said Harvey. “But our question is why? We were asking it knowing we would probably never get a response. We asked anyway. We asked through his attorney. We never got a response to the question. He said that he would pass that along to his client and let us know if there was a response. As of right now, there has not been one.”

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GREAT exanple of outsanding police work, especially by Officer Harvey. Carlsbad PD is to be commended for permitting this fine Officer to send the time and resources to bring this Mexican piece of shitto justice. THANKS

The Knott family has to make a trip to SLO every five years to keep that Gringo piece of shitto-slime, Greg Peyer from getting out. Peyer would not submit to DNA testing, which might have gotten him out. What a waste of taxpayer's money and what a sentence the entire Knott family has had to endure--not to mention the untimely death of Sam Knott, close to the place his daughter was murdered by Peyer. Justice system, my a hole.

Peyer would not submit to DNA testing, which might have gotten him out.

Yes, Peyer KNEW it was HIS DNA, so of course he was nto going to submit it. He too is a slimball of the lowest demoninator.

One of my close friend's, him and his family were very close to the Knott family, espeically the father Sam. What happened to Cara Knott was devesatating. RIP to both of them. Peyer will never get out, ever. And he does not deserve to get out- he is a cold blooded killer who wore a uniform.

And like this case, I will just not forget the Cara Knott case, or the Sagon Penn case or a few others-some of these cases just stick with you because of the brutality, or the circumstances, or the humanity of them.

I'm not sure that this discussion should have come to the Peyer case, but since it did, I can say that whole episode of Peyer was just awful. And he almost got away with it. The first trial ended in a mistrial due to the ineptitude of the prosecutor, and the godawful reluctance of citizens to think that a cop could go bad, or in this case, very bad. Whatever you think of Paul Pfingst now, he was the prosecutor who put Peyer away.

But now, a quarter century later, Peyer still insists that he didn't do it. He's had at least two parole hearings, and stands there and says, in essence, "Gee, I'm sorry about what happened to your daughter/sister, but I didn't do it." Under current parole policies, until he admits his guilt, he ain't gettin' out. And then he might not be released.

Why Peyer cannot admit that he did the deed is not clear. At first the assumption was that he just could not let his parents know that he was a killer. Yet during his trial, he allowed them to drop $100K into his $1 million bail--that they never saw again--because they were convinced he was wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted. Later on, when they were out of the picture (they must be gone by now) he didn't change his tune. Trying to spare his wife? Who knows. But she must have figured it out when the evidence left no other conclusion.

He was convicted just prior to the time that DNA was placed in use. The victim had tissue under her fingernails, and it was preserved. Many years ago, Peyer was offered the opportunity to provide a DNA sample and declined. If he were innocent, that would have soon exonerated him. But he declined, and has kept declining that opportunity. If ANYONE had any doubts to his guilt, that should quiet them forever.

I think we all remember certain cases, the big cases and the tragic cases.

For me this was one of the tragic and senseless cases. I remember the Knott murder too, most do. I remember the Stephanie Crowe murder,the Dale Akiki trial. I remember Sagon Penn, Gerald Riggs and Donavan Jacobs. I remember Jerry Hartless and a few others.